Fireplace dilemma

We found out yesterday that they screwed up our fireplace. We wanted a raised brick hearth, and when they installed our fireplace, they put it in too low to accommodate a raised hearth. We had 4 choices to remedy this: 1) make them rip it out and re-do it, which would involve ripping out siding, part of a roof overhang and drywall, 2) have a low brick hearth (2 bricks high instead of 4 bricks high) and still have the brick up the sides and on top like we wanted, 3) switch to marble or 4) switch to barcelona-style (see pictures below). We didn't really want them to rip it out because that will only delay us. I decided that marble is too formal for me. I liked the barcelona, but again, it's pretty formal. We decided to go with option 2. These builders are lucky we're easy-going!!
Option 3 is on the left & option 4 is on the right:

The good news of the day is that I asked if we could paint our kitchen & bathrooms before they install the cabinets, flooring & trim, and they said that was no problem! Most builders would not allow this. Not only are they allowing it, they also said we need to leave our extra paint there in case they mess it up and have to touch up for us. Nice! I'm calling tomorrow to find out when they'll be finished putting the primer on all the walls, but my guess is we'll be painting this weekend.

Jason's best friend's wedding

This has been a summer of big weddings! Greg & Melissa got married yesterday, and we had a blast! The ceremony was perfect and reception was lots of fun. Jason was a groomsman, and I acted as the pseudo-wedding coordinator, which earned me the title "Wedding Nazi" by one of Jason's friends (what can I say, I got flustered when I had a job to do and no one was listening).

I have never seen Jason dance so much in his life - he is crediting the suspenders (see below). I think I'll be purchasing him a pair for Christmas if that's all it takes to get him to boogie! All in all, it was a fabulous day, and now they're off to Jamaica for a relaxing honeymoon. We wish we were leaving tomorrow for our honeymoon again...

We also had a re-creation of the "Keiner Plaza Sleeping Bum" picture from our wedding - how do these men sleep through this? My guess is they're not sleeping so much as they are passed out. Our wedding is on the left and yesterday is on the right. A lot of pressure on Darrin & Chrissy to keep this trend going next year at their wedding!

As for the house, they've started taping & mudding, but haven't even gotten the first round on all the nail holes yet, so I think it will be late this week before anything exciting happens.

Garage doors

They have now installed our garage doors - now I guess we need to start thinking about buying our garage door openers.










They haven't started on the taping & mudding yet - any day now I guess. They did clean the place up, so that's a nice change from the disastrous mess it's been!

More pictures

I took some more pictures yesterday while we were at the house - not the greatest pictures, but hopefully you can get an idea of how the rooms look. You'll notice that the house is a total disaster-area, with drywall scraps everywhere!

Living room:

The study/den/hearth room:

Master bathroom (the toilet is going to be behind the little 1/2 wall):

Lights

We went today and bought most of our lighting at Lowe's. That was an expensive trip! We still have buy a ceiling fan for the living room, our 6 exterior lights and one other random light. We kind of ran out of energy today, so we'll have to buy the rest some night this week.

We dropped it all off at the display home (where the sales office is) and labeled them all for which rooms they belong in, so before we know it they'll be installed!

We have rooms!

As we expected, they have finished drywalling every wall. It's amazing how fast they finished it! They also put the metal corner things up, so I imagine they'll be taping & mudding all this week. It looks so great - we are so excited to see the finished product. It seems like everything that is left to do is big things, so it will be fun to watch!

They haven't starting on the brick project yet - maybe they're cursing us and secretly hoping we change our minds back. We have made 6 amendments to our contract so far, with another small one on the way. We asked the sales lady if we're the most annoying people she's dealt with and she said one couple had 10 amendments. Hopefully we can keep it under that so we're only the 2nd most annoying people.

My camera battery died while we were out there last night (I know, brilliant), so I only really got one picture. This is the kitchen as viewed from between the kitchen area & the living room. The sink will be behind that green part of the wall and that whole 1/2 wall will be a breakfast bar area. Notice the pretty archway that Jason & his dad built.

Drywall! We have drywall!

How exciting - we figured they were taking it easy because of the heat, but lo and behold, they insulated our whole house and hung drywall on all ceilings and about 1/3 of the walls! It's really starting to take shape. They should finish the rest of the walls tomorrow & Friday. Of course, the slowest part is taping, mudding & sanding - the hanging part is actually the easiest. Fortunately it also happens to be the phase that makes your rooms take shape!! This picture is of the living room (notice the fun plant shelf on the left).

They also installed our basement windows - minor, but exciting nonetheless.

Benefit last night

Last night we went to a benefit for one of the firefighters at Darlene's work - his perfectly healthy 6 year-old stepson was diagnosed in April with terminal brain cancer. It is so sad - they gave him just 6 months to 2 years to live. Here is the website http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/inputSiteName.do?method=search&siteName=colefisher - if you read the journal it gives updates on his condition. He was there last night, and the poor little guy was in a wheelchair and had to wear a mask. It was heart-wrenching.

The benefit had a silent auction, and Jason & I bid on & won this awesome picture from 1965. It's the arch before the final piece was put in and in the foreground is the old Busch Stadium when it was under construction. It's going to be perfect in our study/hearth room. THEN, in the raffle, Jason won a prize that made his night (actually, probably his year): a big golf bag, a golf club, a case of beer, 2 sets of 4 rounds of golf (2 different courses) and I think some other stuff. He's was ecstatic!

Hopefully they raised a lot of money to help the family out.

More brick

We decided to add more brick to the front of our house. We just think that something is missing - we aren't liking how the siding goes right down to the windows. Anyway, we called to get a quote and we heard back Friday. We decided it was reasonable, so we're going ahead with it. They're going to rip out the siding and add about 2 feet of brick above the windows & the garage, along with a row of stone above the windows & garage doors.

Jason went out today and ran all of the coax cable - basically made a cable hook-up in every room, including the mater bathroom so I can watch the Today show while I'm getting ready!! He also ran wires for our future in-house music system, which will boast a volume control in every room. All that's left is running the speaker wire, which he'll hopefully get to do Tuesday night. It was another hot one, so 4.5 hours of work was plenty!

We're meeting with the mortgage guy tomorrow night, so cross your fingers that rates plummet overnight tonight!

Nothing new

Just a quick post to let you know there is nothing new. We haven't gone out to the house because they said they are working shorter days because of the heat (it's been 100 degrees every day this week). We plan to go by there tomorrow to check it out, and Jason is going to run some CAT-5 cable (for speakers). I'll take pictures & post if there's anything new - surely there is something!

In other news, Cyndi & Todd have received their closing date - September 20th. We're hoping that means ours will be a week or two after that. It'll be here before we know it!

Second Place

Well, Cyndi & Todd have officially surpassed us. In just 2 days, their entire house has been drywalled! It looks great - I'm so impressed by how speedy it was! Here is a picture of their living room - notice the cool ceiling. It's so fun to see it with walls!As for our house, not much has changed since the last post. They have delivered the duct work and our furnace, but none of it has been installed yet, so this is the excitement of our evening:

See why I started the post with my in-laws' house instead of ours? Theirs is much more exciting today.

Pretty house

They finished the outside!! Well, almost. The only things left are the driveway/sidewalk to front door and a white board that goes over the garage door. It looks so pretty!! They even installed our white pillar on the front porch!!

They also built our basement stairs, so I can finally go down there without risking a broken neck!Here are some more pictures of the outside - can you tell I'm excited?!?